DIY GoPro gimbal – creating your very own camera stabilizer

Nowadays, more serious filmmakers know the importance of an action camera stabilizer depending on the type of footage you are recording. Specially when you talk on-board footage. So naturally a lot is said about self-levelling action cameras gimbals over the internet. Some home-made options apparently can be build for figures as cheap as $70.00. In case you haven’t researched much, there are a lot of options of open source 3D-printed prototypes out there: the promise is that you download the files, print the parts on your FDM machine and have fun after adding the electronics. So rather than spending hundreds to purchase a professional “ready to go” GoPro stabilizer, you can take advantage of off-the-shelf items you purchase over the internet to build your own super cool personal system for free. Forums about the so desired DIY GoPro gimbal are very popular too, showing you step by step how to craft and program yours. But… is that the way it actually works? Is it really that cheap? And more importantly….is it worth the hassle?

Not much of a step-by-step tutorial here, but we thought you guys wanted or needed to know a bit more on what’s behind a homemade GoPro gimbal. We will use as an example the creation of a 2-axis DIY GoPro gimbal with self-levelling capabilities and using brushless motors – as this is the most modern and popular set-up found today (also called BLG). The idea is to describe the production of a device compact and light enough to be used on-board a motorcycle.

The parts list for 2-axis DIY GoPro gimbal

Virtually every GoPro auto-stabilizer gimbal system will be composed of at least:

1 x Controller board;

2 x Brushless DC motors, specifically wired for gimbals (BLDC);

1 x LiPo battery;

Mechanical parts, that vary from gimbal to gimbal;

Wires, vibrations dampers, risers and screws;

1 x GoPro Hero camera (of course);

DIY GoPro gimbal – component details

Regarding affordable controller boards that feature self-stabilization and have a strong support community behind them, we would like to highlight two:

These two are very distinct hardware projects, with the SimpleBCG offering apparently a bit better response when it comes to stabilization speed…. but both giving you a great value for your investment.

LDPower GM-2208 brushless motor

Lumenier 1300mAh-3S LiPo battery

For the hardware, many many open source projects are available, for different purposes. The website www.diygimbals.com is a good source of free ideas, specially for on-board gimbals. You can download the plans and instructions for their projects in exchange for a Facebook like in their page.